Store Manager for Prestashop or Volusion eCommerce. Which one is better for you? Compare their pricing plans, features, specification, user reviews. Orlique – the Order Manager for Prestashop module review. February 19th, 2012 kfedorov. This is the module for the entire management of your Prestashop store orders. You can add new orders and edit/delete existing ones.

1. Banner Manager Prestashop Review Pdf

Sometimes, open-source site builder software is just way too complicated. Those who are new to creating websites are seeking solutions that are intuitive and easy to use. Intermediate-level web designers might scoff at the idea of WordPress or Magento being confusing, but they present a real learning curve to neophytes.

Thankfully, PrestaShop does a wonderful job of providing that open-source feel without the more intimidating interface.

It all starts with the visually simple PrestaShop website, where you can download the software, sign up for a web hosting solution, and even select an expert designer if you wish.

On the other hand, you might consider playing around with the tools without any assistance, and that’s one of the coolest parts about PrestaShop. You don’t have to pay, and it competes with the likes of Shopify when it comes to ease-of-use.

Contents

• PrestaShop Features and Affordability
• Extras and Upsells from PrestaShop
• Should You Go With PrestaShop?

What Do You Get From PrestaShop?

The basic package from PrestaShop is an open-source e-commerce content management system, website builder, and marketing package. You can launch an online store quickly, and the wide range of themes expedite the design process.

Hosting isn’t included, but you do have the option to sign up with one of PrestaShop’s hosting partners. You also don’t get much design support, but the open-source community is always willing to help. Plus, you can opt for an expert designer at a reasonable charge.

Since it’s an e-commerce website builder, PrestaShop has a dashboard that includes both design tools and options for managing your store. For example, it provides a product page creator with settings for product variants and digital items. You can then jump to the marketing area for setting up automated email and connecting your social media accounts.

Although PrestaShop offers hundreds of modules that integrate with the software, the majority of required e-commerce features are packed into the basic software.

PrestaShop Features and Affordability

Because PrestaShop is open-source, it’s completely free. This means you don’t have to pay a dime for the actual software. It is self-hosted, however. So, you’ll end up paying for items like hosting, domain names, and maybe a template if you’re looking for a cool design.

But other than that you can navigate to the PrestaShop website, click on the Get PrestaShop button, then download it to your computer. PrestaShop is a local software, but you might find some hosting companies that let you integrate and install it without having to do any manual FTP work.

As for the basic features included with the standard PrestaShop software, here’s what to expect:

• Over 500 features currently in the system and dozens more added on a regular basis.
• Over 1,000 modules and themes. You can design your e-commerce website the way you want and add the functionality it needs with the proper modules.
• PrestaShop is translated into over 25 languages. So you could potentially expand your business to attract overseas visitors by having foreign language versions of your site. An example of this is when Amazon created new versions of its site in a variety of languages to target foreign markets.
• A custom template comes with PrestaShop for quickly constructing your own custom build instead of choosing a pre-built one from the template store.

Those are the core features. They get your e-commerce site launched and ready to go, but it’s worth talking about some of the 500 features already built into the system. Keep in mind that this number is staggering compared to some of PrestaShop’s competitors. Some people find it intimidating, but like any software (Take Microsoft Excel, for example) many people use all of the features, while others simply block out the more complicated ones.

As for the features we’re talking about, let’s explore some of the best:

Product Creation

PrestaShop offers a powerful and intuitive product creation and management area. It starts with a module for quickly creating products, configuring features, and setting values. You can create groups of products to get bigger sales and organize the store. The software even has a spot for customizable goods, where the customer would upload files for something like a t-shirt design or something similar.

Both product variants and attributes are supported, and PrestaShop has a full feature set for selling digital products like e-books, music, and photographs.

The product pages are in-depth and customizable, with options for attaching files or adding whatever additional information is needed. You can set a minimum quantity and set up a message to display whenever an item goes out of stock.

Along with categories and subcategories, inventory tracking, supplies management, and manufacturer creation, the product management area is top-notch.

Store Customization

When customizing an online store you typically want two modules, one that’s extremely easy to make quick edits with and another more advanced section for adding or changing the code and customizing however you want.

Even if you’re not a developer, you may eventually want to pay someone to do the job. Therefore, they need access to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files in order to help.

As an open-source solution, PrestaShop has both visual builders and file access.

With the features, you can set up different payment methods, change shipping methods and enable an SSL. Many people use PrestaShop to configure a catalog in the shop, while others are more inclined to display products individually.

Some of the other more popular customization tools include:

• Complete product organization.
• An internal search engine tool for helping your customers move around the store and find products easier.
• A search bar that brings up product information as the user types in keywords.
• A search box on each 404 page.
• An area to talk about your store and tell customers what your company is all about.
• A Google Maps integration, just in case you have any physical shops that people might want to visit.
• A navigation panel in the checkout area.
• Account creation with profiles.
• Tools for customers to adjust things like addresses for shipping and payment.
• An option for customers to validate orders.
• A customizable confirmation page after checkout.

Google Rich Snippets

As you can imagine, Google can be a major source of traffic to your website. However, to direct users to your online store, Google has to know what your store is so that it can rank your site appropriately.

One way for you to help Google improve its understanding of your site and its context with regards to other sites is to use rich snippets. Rich snippets are sets of structured data markup that you can add to your existing HTML. This markup helps Google (and other search engines) better understand the information on your site.

While you could easily hand-generate rich snippets, there is an addon in the PrestaShop Addons Marketplace that streamlines this process. With this addon, improving your website and online store’s SEO does not have to be difficult!

Third-Party Tools

One of the perks of open source software is that the source code is open to anyone who wants to see it. This means that third-parties can easily create powerful tools that work well with the stock PrestaShop package.

One such tool is Store Manager for PrestaShop, which is a tool that helps you manage every aspect of your online store. Its features and functionality are designed to:

• Administer all data storage
• Automate daily store routines
• Track customer activity
• Display up-to-date inventory information
• Handle other basic store operations
• And more…

Please note that not all third-party tools for PrestaShop are free to use — some may require licensing fees, but depending on the services offered, you, as a busy small business owner, may find it worthwhile to splurge for the product.

Prestashop Blog module

Banner Manager Prestashop Review Pdf

One way to keep the information on your site fresh is to maintain a blog. While the core PrestaShop installation does not include a blog, there are many add-ons available in the Addon Marketplace that will install a blog onto your site. If you have an existing blog (for example, you might have a WordPress site already), you can find something that will display your posts in your store. If you do not, you can find something that will add full blogging functionality to your site.

Legal Support

A big part of running an ecommerce store is the ability to comply with laws. You don’t always see legal support through e-commerce software, so this is a huge benefit. For example, you receive guidance and design tools for making quick pages and modules that explain legal information to customers.

PrestaShop also has several checkout and shopping cart tools for making your shop compliant with certain country’s laws. For example, Germany has specific shopping cart rules that must be followed.

Tax configuration can be done, and PrestaShop lets you show taxes for customers in the United States.

Marketing

Another great aspect of the PrestaShop software is that you typically don’t have to go find extra plugins, apps, or integrations. Custom features are a different story, but the typical marketing tools are all there.

For example, you can take advantage of all of the following:

• Coupons codes for customers to redeem in your store.
• A quick discount mode.
• Pricing rules that dynamically change depending on certain parameters.
• Special offers based on things like products and customers.
• You have the ability to offer free shipping on all or some products or when someone spends a certain amount of money.
• Promote specific products on your homepage and suggest related products on regular product pages.
• Drop product promotions in your homepage slider for immediately showing your users what they can save on.
• Ask customers whether or not they would like gift wrapping during the checkout.
• An email system for sending out email to those who have abandoned their carts.
• Email can include products the customers have already viewed.
• Customers can sign back in and see all of the products previously placed in their cart.
• A full SEO module for boosting search engine rankings, connecting to social media and more.
• Affiliate programs.
• Email marketing.

Overall, it would be impossible to cover every single one of PrestaShop’s features. But you can rest easy knowing that it’s filled with goodies for all stores, big and small. Along with order management, customer management, insights, and automated email alerts, the feature collection appears impressive.

Extras and Upsells from PrestaShop

Although most of the time you don’t have to spend extra money with an e-commerce solution, PrestaShop is a tad different. Since PrestaShop is open-source and free, it works similar to Magento and WordPress. Therefore, you get the benefit of not having to pay for the software, but you’re still stuck with getting hosting, a domain name, and whatever design tools or services you need.

When you sign up, however, PrestaShop offers to get you configured with hosting and a web designer if needed. Neither of these is required, but the rates are pretty good for both.

And PrestaShop tries to upsell you on these during the checkout process, so we’d definitely consider them part of the PrestaShop business plan.

Get Hosting

As mentioned before, you have the option to find your own hosting if you want. However, this might make the process for you a little bit easier. Not every hosting company has a one-click installation button for PrestaShop, so you may have to go the manual route. If you do have plans to find your own hosting company, make sure you ask them if a script or one-click installation button is provided for PrestaShop. Otherwise, you’ll be doing more work than needed.

The hosting offered by PrestaShop is through 1&1 Hosting, which is a quality provider, mostly known for its extremely low monthly prices. The hosting through 1&1 is entirely compatible with PrestaShop and ready to go for you to start building your site.

Some of the offerings include:

• An easy installation with a click and build tool provided through 1&1 Hosting.
• An optimized environment (speedy, secure and ready for search engines) for your online store.
• A daily store back up so that you don’t lose any website or customer data. This comes in handy if your site happens to crash or get hacked and you need to restore any of lost data.
• Great technical support for your hosting account, available 24/7.
• A minimum of 2.5 GB of RAM.
• Support for at least one website.
• At least 100 GB of storage.
• At least 25 databases.
• At least 100 email accounts.

In our experience, 1&1 is a reputable hosting company with solid pricing. PrestaShop also vouches for them, otherwise, they wouldn’t have partnered with the company. Therefore, you have the choice to either go with 1&1 Hosting or to consider other alternatives.

Create Your Shop With an Expert

PrestaShop has an intuitive website builder, but some companies or individuals might prefer having an expert take the reins. In this case, you’ll end up spending a good chunk of change, but the partnership with PrestaShop seems to keep the prices down quite a bit. Not only that, but PrestaShop has vetted all of the experts they would consider pairing you with. So, you’re in good hands and you have the chance to customize your shop any way you want.

Some things to think about before going with a PrestaShop expert:

• These are all trained and experienced experts who know how to work with PrestaShop.
• You receive full tech services and a direct line to the person you’ll be working with.
• They provide custom integration and services. So, for example, you might want to integrate with a custom accounting software or with a forum system. Regardless of the request, the PrestaShop experts should be able to handle it.
• You receive marketing and business support, meaning they’ll give you advice and provide tips on what integrations to take advantage of.

The PrestaShop expert market has filters for finding the right type of person or agency. For example, they have options for web agencies, marketing agencies, and module creators.

Some of the more niche experts cover areas like:

• Content management
• Content development
• Database management
• Design and UX
• E-commerce consulting
• Hosting
• Migration services
• Mobile support
• Module development
• SEA
• SEO
• SMO
• Support
• Website optimization
• Third-party software integrations.

PrestaShop offers a wonderful tool for finding experts in your country or region. For example, you may be okay with working with a remote developer, but many people would rather have someone in their own country. So, a company in Spain would choose the Spain dropdown to get someone who speaks Spanish.

All of the experts are rated based on their experience and time as a PrestaShop expert. You can view a profile of the expert, visit their website for examples of their work and contact them to ask about anything you want.

What Makes PrestaShop Special?

The main reason PrestaShop is so special is that it’s a free, open-source e-commerce solution without a clunky or complicated interface. They even have a one-click setup for hosting, so the complete beginners don’t have to set out on a hunt for the perfect hosting company.

The open-source nature means that you get support from a wide range of sources. People are talking about PrestaShop constantly, so you can expand your knowledge by exploring the forums and blog posts.

In addition to this, the large collection of themes and modules takes PrestaShop to the next level. Most users find at least a handful of visually appealing themes for their stores, and the modules are interesting to test out as well.

PrestaShop Customer Support

PrestaShop offers support for migrating to the system if you’re already running on another platform. They also offer training through interactive courses.

PrestaShop has several optional support plans that typically cost you a few hundred dollars. Many site owners are willing to pay for this dedicated support when running a business.

osCommerce vs. PrestaShop

If you are looking at PrestaShop, you have likely heard of osCommerce as well (osCommerce is another well-known, open source e-commerce platform). How do these two options compare?

PrestaShop is more popular, and it is a good option for users who are looking to launch a smaller store. There are lots of add-ons available (partially due to its extensive community of developers). PrestaShop is slightly easier to use, has strong SEO, and supports multi-language use.

osCommerce, however, is a better option for more technical users due to its developer-friendly design. The number of plugins that add features and functionality to your site is smaller in number than it is for PrestaShop, but there are still over 7,000 options. osCommerce is less user-friendly when it comes to building international shopping sites, but it is still a very customizable option.

Should You Go With PrestaShop?

Let’s weigh the pros and cons.

Consider PrestaShop If:

• You’re interested in a free e-commerce solution.
• You like the idea of getting support from the open-source community.
• You’d like most of the necessary e-commerce features built into the system.
• You want a friendly interface but still need access to source files.
• You like the idea of having access to hundreds of themes and modules to expand your store and make it beautiful.

Don’t Consider PrestaShop If:

• You’d rather go with a more consumer-friendly solution with everything included like hosting, domain names and security.
• The thought of no support team scares you, or the support pricing packages are out of your budget.

PrestaShop is definitely a solid choice if you need to set up an online store with plenty of customization options. But if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution that is a bit more hands-off, this one might not be the right choice.

This site uses affiliate links as a means of monetization.

With the recent release of PrestaShop 1.6, now is a great time to conduct a review of one of the most popular ecommerce platforms on the market.

Initially launched in 2007, PrestaShop is now a world-renowned ecommerce solution. The platform powers over 165,000 online stores around the world, supporting 63 languages across 160 different countries.

Now, with PrestaShop 1.6 – which was released on March 17^th 2014 – PrestaShop now seems to have evolved into a far more powerful ecommerce solution

In fact, the PrestaShop team claim that version 1.6 is the, “smartest and most beautiful PrestaShop version to date”.

So, I guess that's my cue to delve into PrestaShop and explore just how true those claims of intelligence and beauty are.

Initial Thoughts

A quick look at the PrestaShop website gives you an idea of just how important their community is.

Unlike the home pages of some other notable ecommerce solutions, PrestaShop's home page isn't dominated by a demonstration video or cheesy jargon.

Instead, the main menu offers up “Community” and “Forum” buttons, whilst further down the page you notice areas dedicated to latest forum posts, along with a “Shop of the Week” award.

It's all rather charming, and offers a refreshingly friendly welcoming with an evident focus on the PrestaShop community.

That's not to detract from the substance of what PrestaShop offers though. It doesn't take much browsing around to realise that you're dealing with a serious ecommerce platform.

For example, the PrestaShop forums are home to some 600,000 registered members, whilst a live counter proudly displays over 3.6million PrestaShop downloads to date.

Getting Started

PrestaShop is open-source and completely free. However, it isn't a hosted ecommerce solution, so you'll need to head over to their website and hit the download button on their home page

Leaving your name, email address and status as either a freelancer, merchant or agency is completely optional.

Pleasantly, the download itself only takes a few seconds with a strong Internet connection.

The Dashboard

PrestaShop's dashboard – also known as the Back Office – is pretty damn sleek. As I mentioned in my hands-on preview with PrestaShop 1.6, it's a colossal improvement on the previous PrestaShop admin panel.

Unlike many other ecommerce platforms on the market, the PrestaShop dashboard isn't text heavy, nor does it offer crammed menus and pages.

Quick access to product uploading, profile settings and your store's homepage is provided by the top menu bar, which sits above a secondary tab containing a help button specific for each page of the Back Office.

The sidebar can also be easily minimized, allowing the main window to take centre stage.

The top menu, which provides access to latest orders, registrations, messages, achievements, and more, is very neatly laid out and unintrusive, even with its drop-down menus. The left-hand sidebar contains the bulk of available features and functions, all of which are listed below a handy search bar.

As for the actual dashboard page, you'll quickly notice how fact and stat driven it is. Graphs and counters are the core focus, and it all looks extremely modern and professional. You could say that it's more of a control centre than a traditional dashboard.

Such dashboard conveniences include a number of graphs which display sales, orders, profits, and more. Various widgets display things like current visitor activity, open shopping carts, abandoned carts, and so forth.

You can even integrate Google Analytics with the dashboard, which in turn provides you with further stats without the need to leave your PrestaShop admin panel.

Furthermore, you can configure and tweak many of these widgets using the small cog found on the top right-hand corner.

The dashboard wasn't entirely without fault though.

One dashboard option for example, indicates that you have new messages, reviews and customers, and provides you with relevant figures. However, there is no link to your inbox, the new reviews or the new customers from that widget itself, making it pretty useless. A few simple links would give it some more purpose.

I came across another issue when configuring some settings for the dashboard widgets. The resulting menu displays, but two drop-down menus are too large, and thus become partically hidden by other elements. It's a purely cosmetic flaw – but a flaw nonetheless.

Apart from these niggling issues, all the interfaces I came across in the back office of PrestaShop 1.6 maintained the modern feel I found on the dashboard, with each section offering detailed functionality.

Intelligent Merchant KPI & Further Statistics

The statistical power of PrestaShop goes beyond their dashboard page. In fact, the entire admin panel is filled to the brim with useful insights.

So, if you're deeply into studying stats, facts and figures – as most online merchants will be – you'll love what PrestaShop has to offer.

First up, is the built-in “Intelligent Merchant KPI” feature found throughout the dashboard.

The Intelligent Merchant KPI displays relevant facts and figures relating to stock levels, profit margins, abandoned carts, and more. These stats are all displayed across the top of different pages and sections of the Back Office, staying relevant all the time.

A dedicated “Stats” page also allows you to get a wide range of statistics from all the nooks and crannies of your store – all of which are automatically measured.

The Stats page offers insights into areas like best product categories, best customers, best sellers, search engine keywords, visitors, best vouchers and many more. PrestaShop really flexes it's statistical muscles once again here, giving you a huge amount to monitor. Yet, the simple graphs and lists associated with each parameter makes that monitoring a piece of cake.

Most impressively though, is the brand new and unique “Real Time Net Profit Margin” which enables you to keep track of your takings in real time.

Additionally, a “Forecast” option automatically gives you an insight into how your store should be performing in the future, based off of current and previous data. Both of these features are found on the dashboard home page.

Adding Products

Naturally, product creation plays a big role when it comes to selecting a your ecommerce solution. Of course, PrestaShop have recognized this, and have carried out a through job in this vital area.

You can use the Quick Access menu across the top of the dashboard to quickly find the “New Product” feature.

The product creation page is extremely well detailed, allowing you to describe your product extensively. This includes specifying whether the product is physical or virtual, its name, description, reference codes, visibility and so forth.

Further options include specific pricing and shipping options, product images, image captions, search engine optimization features and much more.

Duplicating products is also a feature easily accessible from the product creation page, along with individual product sales statistics for existing product. You can also preview products before publication, which is always a handy option.

Overall, there is a wealth of features focused on product creation, and PrestaShop have managed to categorise them well. None of these extra product specifications are mandatory, and so you should feel at ease uploading all types of products, whether they be very simple or extremely detailed.

Templates & Design

Via the PrestaShop Official Marketplace, PrestaShop offer over 1,500 templates. 500 of those are premium templates, along with over 600 templates designed by certified partners.

On top of that, there are further templates developed by other third-parties. That's a lot of templates.

At the time of writing, only one premium template is compatible with PrestaShop version 1.6 – but I expect that to be a temporary issue as time goes on.

The premium and partner certified templates all look professional and of a high standard, whereas the vast majority of templates from other sources don't really compare in terms of quality.

Community developed templates range from completely free, right up to around $319 – which is very steep.

For templates from PretaShop certified partners, pricing starts from around $84, whereas pricing for premium templates begins from as high as $157. Both temple categories carry templates selling for around $217. Again, that's quite pricey.

In comparison, Shopify templates start from $80 and only reach as high as the $180 mark. Certain Bigcommerce themes on the other hand, sell for $250, although premium prices start from $120.

PrestaShop's templating options are extensive and – for the most part – of high quality. However, it would be nice to see premium templates start from slightly lower prices.

The Front Office

PrestaShop version 1.6 also brought about numerous “Front Office” enhancements which have played a big role in sprucing up the front end design options for PrestaShop users.

Once such change was the “Quick View” functionality for all listed products. The feature brings up a “Quick View” button whenever customers hover over a product, which in turn opens up a lightbox presenting key product information, images, pricing, social sharing buttons, and so forth.

Other notable improvements can be found within catalog pages, where customers can customize their browsing experience by opting to view products within either a list or grid.

Those same catalog pages also house a range of search filters, making product hunting easier. Customers can filter products by colour, size, materials, styles, price and more with just a few clicks.

As for the shopping cart itself, quick access to the cart is available via the top right-hand corner of the page, but unlike previous versions of PrestaShop, the drop-down menu gives you a large, cleaner window, along with the featured image of the products in your cart.

Check out is separated into five sections: Summary, Login, Address, Shipping and Payment. Pretty straightforward stuff.

Perhaps the most useful Front Office feature though, is the fact that you can edit colors, fonts, CSS and much more with just a few clicks using the Live Template Edit feature.

This is obviously great news for those without coding skills, although as an open-source software, code lovers can get their hands as dirty as they like in order to give their PrestaShop store a unique look and feel.

Overall, the templates developed by PrestaShop and its partners are of a quality standard, and their prices aren't exactly extortionate.

However, I'd probably avoid most of the community developed templates if you're looking to build a truly professional store for a good price. The free options are lacking quality, whilst many creep up over premium themes in price.

Although those dearer themes are of a good standard, I fail to see how they can be priced beyond premium and certified partner themes.

Shipping, Taxing & Payment Options

When it comes to shipping options, PrestaShop does a solid job of allowing you to set up different carriers as you would expect. Additional options include the ability to set handling charges, default carriers and so on.

If you wish, you can also configure at what order value free shipping begins at.

Things get a little confusing when it comes to taxing though. To set up taxes for different locations, you need to head over to Localization, then Taxes. Here, you can simply add the name of the tax, before giving it a percentage value.

However, to actually configure tax rules for these same taxes, you'll need to navigate to another page called Tax Rules, where you may then select your exisiting taxes, before assigning things like location, zip/postal code range, etc. I personally fail to see why these options cannot be dealt with on one page.

When it comes to payment gateways, PrestaShop has a nice variety of free options. PayPal, Stripe & Skrill are amongst the popular names. Further options like PayPal Pro are available, but only at a price.

Apps & Extras

To get extra functionality out of PrestaShop, you can head over to the PrestaShop Module Marketplace.

There are hundreds upon hundreds of modules to browse through, many of which are free of charge.

At the time of writing, over 80 of those modules have been developed by PrestaShop, while over 400 have been developed by certified partners.

Modules range from advertising tools to payment security extras, all of which are neatly categorised and ready for download.

One issue I did have, was with some of the prices – particularly for PrestaShop developed modules.

The PayPal Pro Module for example was selling for a total of approximately $269. Meanwhile, the Amazon Marketplace module was on sale for $358. These two particular modules are by no means vital to the PrestaShop ecommerce experience, but that's no excuse for the hefty price tags.

Along with the template pricing options on offer, it's not hard to see how costs can add up.

Marketing

Unfortunately, there isn't much built-in to PrestaShop which helps in terms of marketing.

Vouchers can easily be added from the dashboard, using the Quick Access menu on the top menu bar. The “New Voucher” option takes you to a page called “Cart Rule”,which in my opinion could be given a better name in order to avoid confusion.

The Cart Rule page enables you to create vouchers by giving them names, codes, and other specifications. You can set the voucher to be limited to one use per customer, to give free shipping, percentage discounts and more.

Search engine optimization options are also offered on PrestaShop. As previously mentioned, the product creation process allows you to add things like META titles, descriptions and SEO friendly URLs.
This can also be done in more detail via the “Preferences” tab, where you can generate SEO friendly URLs for every page and product within your PrestaShop store.

If you're looking for email marketing features and third-party marketing tool integrations, then the PrestaShop Official Marketplace is where you'll need to go. In fairness though, there are many modules available for free which help in this regard, including a range of options which display social sharing buttons on various pages.

Getting Help

PrestaShop is not a newcomer to the ecommerce market, and their online community stretches far and wide as a result. The 600,000 strong online forum helps users get their questions answered quickly by both PrestaShop experts as well as other users.

Official support options include a helpline which is open during business hours only, along with a standard contact form. It should also be noted however, that there is a large quantity of documentation available from the PrestaShop website, which provides help and support concerning the platform's different features and functions.

Despite this, I felt that the most useful support feature was located within the dashboard itself. A “Help” button is located in the top-right corner of every page on the Back Office panel.

When clicked, the Help button brings up a window with relative information, depending on which page you're viewing. For example, if you hit Help on the Statsitcs page, you will be presented with a window detailing all the workings of the Statistics page. I found this option to be extremely useful.

Pricing

PrestaShop is completely free and open-source.

Technically speaking, you won't need to spend a penny on PrestaShop to build an online store, although a professional theme and some useful modules will definitely start to set you back.

The Verdict

PrestaShop is a very sleek and very detailed platform, which offers a heavy dose of statistical data for merchants to study and improve upon.

Core functions which you would expect from an ecommerce solution are all present, and in good working order. Additional features like Real Time Net Profi Margins, Forecasted Data and Intelligent Merchant KPI all cometogether to decorate the platform with extensive yet relevant facts and figures. These graphs and counters all work in tandem to make PrestaShop a seriously powerful ecommerce analytics engine, on top of being a well oiled ecommerce solution.

The new front and back office improvement brought about by PrestaShop 1.6 have completely changed the way the platform looks for the better. Menus and interfaces are easy on the eyes, whilst front end features like search filtering make browsing a breeze.

Naturally, despite these positives, PrestaShop isn't perfect. As I have previously explained, cosmetic fixes need to be made to certain areas of the dashboard, whilst other areas could do with a little more functionality. Template and module pricing are also a slight issue, especially for merchants looking to deploy third-party marketing tools.

However, these flaws are not major in any way, and the quality of PrestaShop in almost every area is quite clear to see.

Pros

• PrestaShop is completely free and open-source.
• Gives you everything you need to set up an online store.
• Sleek, modern and user-friendly dashboard.
• Product creation can be quick and easy, but athe options to set up more complex products are all there too.
• Huge amount of modules and templates, many of which have been developed by PrestaShop and certified partners.
• Templates are generally of a very high standard, while various front end features make shopping easy.
• Incredibly detailed statistics can be found throughout the platform.
• Unique features like Intelligent Merchant KPI and Forecasting make PrestaShop's statistical prowess even more impressive.
• Massive online community.

Cons

• Although many templates are of a good standard, the pricing system concerning community built and premium themes in particular, are in need of review.
• Some very minor cosmetic and functional flaws can be found within the dashboard.
• Module & template prices can add up quite easily if you're looking for a truly professional set up.
• Not a great amount of built-in marketing options.

Final Remarks

After reviewing PrestaShop's newly improved platform, I'm almost tempted to start an online store myself, just to experience the platform's statistical powers on a personal level.

Watching your very own net profit margins in real time along with sales, orders and other parameters would naturally spur you on to improve and hone your store. These detailed insights are unique to PrestaShop, and they alone make an extremely compelling case for the popular platform.

PrestaShop's modern outlook on the evolving world of ecommerce will definitely work in the favour of their users. It's no exaggeration to say that PrestaShop 1.6 has allowed the platform to take a gigantic leap forward, helping it to compete more closely with the other ecommece giants currently on the market.

One thing is for sure though, thanks to finely-tuned analytical data scattered throughout the dashboard, PrestaShop users are now better equipped than ever before to take their projects to new heights.

To find out more about PrestaShop, visit their official website. Thee's even an online demo for you to test out.

Furthermore, don't forget to explore more of PrestaShop via our CMS Directory.